Wonder Woman

Gadot's Show

A magnificent first hour, some fair parts after, before it goes into creative suicide. Wonder Woman has one element that will make it last however and that is the striking star power of Gal Gadot. They say Hollywood doesn’t take risks with Middle Eastern actresses to carry a movie and that there is still a racial equality problem in Tinseltown, but even if there persists to be one, Gadot’s radiance rises above all and represents an unequaled glamour: lovely and exotic, statuesque and intimidating. Gadot has primarily been known for co-starring in the better half of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, and she made a Wonder Woman appearance in “Batman v. Superman,” but it was about time she got her own starring vehicle.

The first has great visual taste in the first section where we see the rise of girl to Wonder Woman, where we meet the Amazons of the Themyscira. There has never been a man until the arrival of Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine, demonstrating major leading man gravitas), who somehow passes through a wormhole from World War I. The Amazons must kill some Germans, Captain Trevor has to get back to the war, and Diana the Wonder Woman must go kill Ares, the Greek God of War. But it’s the touches in-between that entertain us: The staunch feminism and lack of need of men (at any history of time), the flirtations between Diana and this attractive intruder Trevor, the scenes of Diana shopping for clothes in wartime London, the verbal jousting between Diana and stuck-up British aristocrats who think they know how to maneuver a war.

It’s tiring writing about “Wonder Woman” after two paragraphs because it bogs down to the same old thing that I see all the time: Some superhero has to go mano-o-mano with a supervillain while CGI colors plaster the screen. Aren’t the movie gods sick of this CGI apocalyptic nonsense? Noisy isn’t necessarily better, is it not? It’s really a shame, because “Wonder Woman” is good enough for awhile to think – if you’re a movie freak watching it – that it has the same brisk pacing and refined wit to rival 1978’s “Superman” i.e. What if I’m watching a classic! Director Patty Jenkins once directed one of the best films ever made with the devastatingly serious “Monster” (2003). I can see clear as day she has a great eye for things even for a blockbuster tentpole. But I can’t help to think that she at some point with “Wonder Woman” had to play ball, likely with male execs at the studio, to compromise her movie so it contained all the usual usurp comic book ingredients.

I can’t deny half the time however that Gadot and Pine are a sexy-funny match, and Gadot alone defeating natty Germans is, well, glorious. I would like to wish for something next to happen: Nothing would be more super to me now though as to see Gadot shine in a down to Earth role, to see her successfully carry a movie playing not a hero, but one of us. If Tinseltown decides to pigeonhole Gadot in one type of action heroine role, then that becomes something of an injustice.

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Sean Chavel is a Hollywood based author and movie reviewer. He is the Executive Director of flickminute.com, a new website that has adapted the movie review site genre by introducing moodbased and movie experience based reviews.